[Anonymous], Letters in the Spirit of God to Friends [1850]

Title: Letters in the Spirit of God to Friends.

Author: unknown (anonymous publication).

Publisher: Kraków, at the Catholic Publications House on Floryańska Street, No. 503.

Year of publication: 1850.

Format: 19 cm.

Number of pages: 188.

Binding: Half-cloth binding.

“Letters in the Spirit of God to Friends” is an anonymous collection of religious and edifying letters, published in Kraków in 1850. The title page is adorned with a motto taken from the letters themselves: “Today I am like that ivy that winds its way across the ground, which anyone can trample underfoot; but when it finds a tree, it clings to it and climbs upward, as if it had come back to life! So too, when I find a heart that loves God, through it and with it I climb upward toward God.” In 19th-century devotional literature, the form of letters to friends was a popular means of spiritual instruction, direct and accessible to a wide readership. The price—3 Polish zlotys—was printed in an ornate cartouche beneath the motto. The book was published in the early years of Walery Wielogłowski’s Kraków publishing house, founded in 1849. It was one of the most important Polish publishing centers for Catholic literature in the mid-19th century, which also published scholarly, agricultural, and popular books.

Walery Wielogłowski (1805–1865), the founder of the publishing house, was born on December 6, 1805, in Proszówki near Bochnia. As a major, he fought in the November Uprising and was awarded the Virtuti Militari cross. After the uprising’s defeat, he was active in the underground resistance, and in 1836, facing the threat of arrest, he left for France. While in exile, he maintained contact with Adam Mickiewicz, among others. In 1848, he returned to Kraków, and a year later he founded the Bookstore and Publishing House of Catholic, Scientific, and Agricultural Works. He was the author of popular social novels, including *My Grandmother’s House* and *The Bailiff, or the Secrets of Country Life*, as well as the memoir *Krakow Forty Years Ago*. He served on the Kraków City Council and was a deputy to the National Sejm in Lviv. He co-founded the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts and an agricultural school in Czernichów. He died on July 11, 1865, in Kraków.

Provenance: On the title page and the last page is a stamp reading “Bibliotheca P.P. Carmelitarum Leopoli,” certifying that the volume belonged to the library of the Carmelite monastery in Lviv. The title page also bears the inventory number “1017” in blue ink. On the front flyleaf, there is a pencil notation in catalog form reading “Wielogłowski Walery,” attributing the print to the publisher, and a printed annotation reading “Removed from duplicates.”

This is a Kraków religious print from the Wielogłowski publishing house, with a clearly identifiable Lviv monastic provenance. An item of interest to collectors of 19th-century religious literature, researchers of the history of the Kraków publishing movement, and collectors of Lviv-related works and items from the Eastern Borderlands.

The block is compact and stable; the original stitching firmly holds the signatures together; there are no loose pages; the volume is complete in terms of text. The paper has adequate stiffness, with scattered foxing, acid-induced yellowing, and superficial soiling along the margins from past page-turning; seals and pencil notes are fully legible. The original half-cloth binding is rigid and clean, with minor signs of age and minimal wear on the paper at the edges of the board.

Catalog ID: 17192x19-A-X